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Getting to the Meat of the
Matter: In-store Surveying Informs Beef Producers
Before members of a new Kansas City cooperative that wanted to market “natural”
meat and other farm products began soliciting area grocery stores, they conducted
a comprehensive, SARE-funded marketing research effort.
Now, the 30 members of the Good Natured Family Farms Alliance of Kansas City,
Mo., know what their customers like, such as labels indicating meat is “free
of additives” and fruit-flavored beef jerky, and they market accordingly.
They sell beef, free-range chicken and eggs, milk in glass bottles, farmhouse
cheeses, tomatoes and other products to a grocery store chain. Their meat is
labeled “all-natural,” a USDA-approved claim specifying the ranchers
used no growth-enhancing hormones, sub-therapeutic antibiotics or animal by-products.
The co-op has embraced each step of the food supply chain – raising the
animals, processing them at a local plant owned by one of their members and
selling meat directly to stores.
But before it all began, the co-op set the stage for future success. Working
with scientists at Kansas State University, they created surveys to assess preferred
beef cuts both from grocery meat managers and customers, who could sample and
record their impressions at an in-store computer kiosk.
“Market research allows you to identify your consumers and the products
that work and don’t work,” said Diana Endicott, an organic beef
and chicken rancher who has been instrumental to the co-op’s growth. “It
helps you find out who wants your product and how much they’re willing
to pay.” To overcome a looming obstacle, Endicott oversaw construction
of a federal meat processing plant 10 miles from her Rainbow Organic Farm.
Consumers indicated they wanted to know how their meat was raised, and said
they read labels to ascertain the presence of artificial additives and preservatives.
Perhaps most important, those surveyed said “taste and tenderness”
outweighed price as purchasing factors.
It came as no surprise that the retail meat managers surveyed preferred cuts
of loin to round, rib, chuck and ground beef.
The taste test findings encouraged co-op members, most of them third- and fourth-generation
ranchers, to supply cuts such as strips, ribeye, top round and top sirloin,
as well as add value to lower cuts in hot dogs and beef jerky. Five years later,
they deliver about 30 head of beef a week, netting about $45 to $100 more per
head than the conventional price. They also see substantial premiums for chicken
and eggs.
It never hurts to make a supporter out of the person customers see behind the
counter, Endicott points out. “When the consumer asks what it tastes like,
they can answer them.”
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